Intertwined
by TheSuperNinja'sCrabcake
Summary: Post-Final Battle, Kagome is trapped in her time with a lot of energy absorbed from her entrapment in the Shikon, causing her powers to be temperamental. Having come to the attention of the Spirit World, Kagome has no choice but to accept weekly visits from a tantei to help her balance her reiki. KurKag.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Before every chapter begins, there will be a short snippet of a flashback.**

**Title: Intertwined **

**Summary: Post-Final Battle, Kagome is trapped in her time with a lot of energy absorbed from her entrapment in the Shikon, causing her powers to be temperamental. Having come to the attention of the Spirit World, Kagome has no choice but to accept weekly visits from an employee to help her balance her reiki.**

* * *

"_It will be a surprise if you meet your majority," Naraku whispered, his energy curling around her, weaving in and out of her aura in insidious loops. The Shikon hummed around them, pulsating with each new touch of their souls against one another. "Time has a way of correcting things."_

"_Then time will surely deal with you, Naraku," Kagome spat, hatred coloring every nook and crevice of her voice only to be dismissed with a laugh._

"_Have you not realized yet? We are beyond time, little miko." His words, though contradictory, were so final, and hung so concretely in the emptiness around them. And, though she wouldn't admit it out loud, the definitive weight to his words scared her._

"_I'm done talking with you," Kagome hissed, her disembodied voice echoing in the void. _

"_Have you forgotten already? We're here to fight, Kagome. You can't simply ignore me," Naraku tsked. _

_A hand that she didn't even know existed pushed its way through the chest that she had forgotten she had even had. Wisps of fingers grasped tightly around what was left of her heart in sick triumph._

* * *

"You be polite," Kun-Loon chastised, a flour dirtied hand propped on her hip as she observed her daughter as she passed into the kitchen.

"Hai, hai," Kagome murmured dismissively as she placed the broom back beside the old refrigerator, dust clambering up around her dark amethyst hamakas.

As she rounded the corner, her mother took her clean hand and lifted Kagome's chin so that she could see her daughter's face. "Kagome, listen to your okasan. Please do not dishonor our family by being disrespectful to the kami's appointment."

Kagome found her heart clenching as she looked at the worry lines that had etched themselves into her mother's once smooth face. They were caverns across her forehead and little tributaries that pulled her mouth down, betraying how many times she had frowned and worried. And it was painful to know that these lines were due to her mother wondering, each time that Kun-Loon watched her disappear down the well, if her daughter would ever come back.

"I promise, okasan," Kagome whispered, squeezing her mother's frail fingers.

Love warmed her mother's stern eyes, melting them so that Kagome could see the worry underneath. "Sometimes," she murmured, smoothing a midnight lock out of Kagome's face. "Oh, I don't know," she faltered as she rested her hands on Kagome's lean shoulders. In that moment, Kagome almost could feel her emotions pressing into her.

"Sometimes you wish I hadn't gone down the well?" Kagome said, smiling sadly at her mother when she breathed out a sigh.

"Sometimes, I do too," Kagome admitted. "But, without the Sengoku Judai, I would have never met the people that I did or have been able to hone my power so that I could protect others."

"Just don't let it consume you."

Kagome smiled again, albeit more softly this time. "Don't worry, that's what the Reikai representative is here for. He'll help me reign in my reiki."

Even now, she could feel her reiki hugging her in a comforting vise, creeping around the walls and caressing her mother. The air shuddered with the raw power that was pulsing within her and it made Kagome shiver to know that the temperamental was coming from her.

"Well," Kun-Loon blew a silvery strand out of her face. "You just need to be on your best behavior. Don't be so apathetic, dear. It only makes people wary." _We don't want them deciding that you are a threat _went unspoken.

"Yes, okasan," Kagome said, letting her mother caress her hair once more before she pulled away and made her way to the bathroom, the dark locks whirling with her. Her hair had gone from her usually manageable shoulder length to reaching mid-back.

Kagome looked in the mirror and almost cringed at the features that she saw. Her face had lost more of its roundish quality and though not quite as sharply featured, she could clearly see Kikyou in herself. The truth, though, was that it wasn't her facial features that made her look similar to the clay miko. It was her eyes. Though a bright, foreign blue in comparison to Kikyou's earthy color, her eyes mimicked hers in that they contained less happiness. Any brightness that they had had been smothered by the harshness and realities of her battle within the Shikon no Tama; only a small streak of light still existed.

Kagome closed her eyes to escape the sight, loathing the fact that she couldn't embrace the naivety that she once held before. She was only seventeen and the world was a dark, cruel place; the world beyond their time, before their time, in their time, and-

Orange and red flashed behind her eyelids, making Kagome open her eyes, reluctantly noticing the flickering lights and the cracks that were spiderwebbing along the glass, distorting her face. She tried to squelch the panic by breathing deeply through her nose, but that only encouraged her anxiety and out-of-control feeling to coil tighter.

_Control. Control. _Control it.

"Kagome, some guy is here for you!" Souta yelled up the stairs, her little brother's voice making everything snap back into focus, her aura fading back into dormancy but not before the shaky retraction rattled the toothbrushes on the sink-side, causing them to spill out.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Kagome ran her hands across her miko garb, smoothing out any stray hairs or wrinkles that had clung while she did her work on the shrine. While the tourists had been few today, the chores were not.

_Be polite. I can do this. I can do this._

As she passed through the kitchen, she caught her mother's stern glance before the woman busied herself with tending to her sticky rice.

She didn't have to impress on Kagome how important it was that her meetings with the Reikai representative went well; she was well aware. Koenma, the leader of the Reikai, had given her the ultimatum of having a tantei help control her reiki or be sentenced to life confinement. As the Shikon no Miko, her powers had already been great, despite being untrained; but after the final battle and her time within the Tama it had grown exponentially and at a rate that she found herself having a thin grasp over. And after she had fought tooth and nail to get back to her family, she wasn't willing to lose them all over again.

"You must be Kurama-san," Kagome greeted him, unable to help her cooled tone as she approached the stranger standing in the center of the living room.

Vibrant ruby hair was gathered up into a pony tail that was slick against his strong neck in the heat of the day, and the bright green eyes studying her analytically abruptly reminded her of a less playful Shippo. Curiously, she saw that he was dressed in a distinctly Chinese outfit though she was fairly positive that he was Japanese. His height loomed over her, but wasn't towering or intimidating in any way. For a second, he almost looked like a bishounen, but the slightly angular shape of his features dispelled that image; that, and the overall sense of subtle power that she could warily feel wafting from him.

To her dismay, her reiki roused at the foreign presence, stretching out lazily as it teased around the stranger unrelentingly.

Pulses of feedback swirled around her, and Kagome realized that it wasn't that his aura was less playful than Shippo's, rather it was mischievous in an entirely different way. It had a darker, more sensual overtone that left her breathless.

"Pleased to meet you," Kurama's voice rolled out in gentle timbre, surprisingly soft and yet masculine at the same time. He didn't give any impression on whether or not he had felt her aura practically engulf him, but the curiosity burning in his eyes had intensified.

Kagome thought—idiotically—for a second that her knees might go weak but then she caught ahold of herself with an internal scoff and a little more than a mental slap.

_Well, he sure is way too damn attractive, _she thought with disdain.

**Since Cerulean is my priority right now, I won't have time to update this unless I get ten reviews to show that people like this. I'm sorry if that upsets some people, but this is a low priority fic unless people show interest. A simple "Loved it" or "Hated it" works just fine!**

**Thank you for reading!**

**-Eryn "Ninja" Silvenia**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Before every chapter begins, there will be a short snippet of a flashback (this chapter's is a lot longer than the last. Also, thank you all for the reviews; they made me incredibly happy!**

**Title: From the Cloth**

**Summary: Post-Final Battle, Kagome is trapped in her time with a lot of energy absorbed from her entrapment in the Shikon, causing her powers to be temperamental. Having come to the attention of the Spirit World, Kagome has no choice but to accept weekly visits from an employee to help her balance her reiki.**

* * *

_Blood leaked from their eyes as if they had been crying from their very souls, their bodies piled on one another haphazardly. Their mouths were open, arched painfully and unnaturally as they croaked and hissed her name. Ayumi's hand stretched out, tendons straining underneath her scarlet splattered paper skin, stretching towards her. "…agome…ome…me…Help us…save—"_

"_Kagome, are you daydreaming again?" Eri peered at her, a smile brightening her youthful face, a hand propped on her hip. "It took us forever to find you, crazy!"_

_Kagome blinked and the image easily dispelled and she turned her startled azure eyes up to her friend. "Huh?" Her heart was thudding beneath the thin material of her uniform, the bulky red bow concealing what she knew to be a thundering beat and palpitating chest. Fear had caused sweat to drench the back of her neck, cool against her skin._

"_Don't you know she's always dreaming," Yuka laughed, tucking a lock behind her ear, as she leaned heavily onto Eri's bent back and threw her arms around her the other girl's slender neck, causing the girl to stumble forward. Ayumi rolled her eyes as Yuka pushed Eri, irritation ticking in her face as she began to yell with playful anger. Yuka happily danced out of the reach of her violent fingers._

_The sound of their bickering barely reached Kagome, who had—thankfully—been forgotten where she was laying on edge of the rooftop._

_Why did everything feel so surreal, Kagome couldn't help but wonder, putting her arm over her eyes to block out the overwhelming brightness of the sun. She couldn't help but to feel that something was missing…_

_Sunlight peeked through her fingers, caressing each phalange and causing Kagome's eyes to dilate as she squinted. Weightlessness rocked through her as she moved her feet from side to side, noting the lack of rooftop beneath them. _

_Why did everything feel so_…wrong?

"_Inuyasha…" the name suddenly whispered from her lips and rose higher and higher and higher into the air until she had already forgotten it._

* * *

**Chapter Two**

"So you are Koenma's lackey?" Kagome couldn't help herself from biting out with a syrupy sweet smile, making the young man's gentlemanly smile turn taut. Further in the house she could hear her mother practically banging her head against the wall in exasperation, but she didn't regret her words.

The presumptuous lord of Reikai had refused to listen to her, already assuming that all of his sources were correct, and had simply given her a sentence. To him, she was nothing more than a delinquent—a child that had meddled and had gone gallivanting throughout time—that happened to guard a powerful artifact that they coveted. It was blatant when she had been standing in front of the large desk, hands bound, that he was positive that she would fail in her task of controlling her reiki.

"I can assure you, Higurashi-san," Kurama stated evenly, previously dormant youki startling her as it began to wave off of his aura in vapors; his initial smile was still present, however, it was tight and strained. "That we are both here not of our own free wills and are on equally bad terms with Reikai. Working for them is simply my willing atonement."

"The most irritating part about what you just said is that it was actually comforting," Kagome admitted after a pause, pinching the bridge of her nose as she sighed, irritation leaking from her lithe form.

"Pleased to be of service." Sarcasm tinged his words, surprising her as she caught annoyance slightly gracing his face before disappearing underneath his kind façade. Ironically, it was that slight glimpse of humanity that she found herself relaxing even further. It was also then, though, in that second that she realized how tense and awkwardly they were standing, analytically staring at each other, trying to gauge something that they didn't know that they needed to know yet.

"Ano, Is there a specific place that we should be doing…" Kagome sighed, running a hand through her bangs before she motioned in a confused flourish, her sleeve billowing slightly with the movement. "…whatever we are doing."

"Outside would be lovely, please," Kurama suddenly spoke up, a soft insistence in the undercurrent of his voice. "Nature provides a calming ambience when training."

_Okay, then…_

"Okasan, I'll be right back," Kagome shouted behind her, hopefully loud enough for her mother to hear as she opened the door and was welcomed into the evening air.

The walk towards the shade that the looming Goshinboku provided was a calm, silent one, though Kagome could feel her aura prodding Kurama's curiously. The heat of the day was just finally beginning to cool as clouds overshadowed the sun and a slight wind began blowing, prompting the wind chimes seated on a branch to trickle their music around them.

Stopping before the ancient tree, Kagome's reiki excitedly rushed around it, spiraling up the Goshinboku in what she could only assume was a respectful greeting. The answering hum of spirit energy fluttered through her and she closed her eyes briefly in reverence.

Turning, she lowered herself down onto the grass, heaving a slight sigh as she ignored the bench, and sat traditionally.

"May we please get started?" Once upon a time, Kagome would have never imagined herself as being rude to a guest, especially a guest appointed by a kami—of all things—but she needed to help Souta with his homework and check on her Ojiisan. It was frustrating that Koenma expected her to drop whatever she was doing in order to accommodate his sentence.

Oddly enough, though, her prompt attitude didn't necessarily irritate Kurama; rather, it seemed that he was slightly amused if anything—especially if going by the twinkle in his eyes.

"Forgive me." He cleared his throat. "Enma-sama personally suggested that we use a contrast method to help calm your reiki. Koenma-san wants us to attempt this method every week for the next two months in hopes that you can control your power."

"Actually," Kagome brushed some strands of hair behind her ear, suddenly nervous when she had the full attention of his piercing green eyes. Inwardly, she wondered if that's how people felt when she looked at them. After being surrounded by commonplace brown orbs, it was startling to see such a bright, foreign color.

"Wouldn't that be detrimental considering that it was exposure to youki that originally helped to awaken my reiki? Logic would say that this process would make my aura more unstable, not less."

Irritation briefly flitted through her as she saw the surprised look in his eyes.

_Was she not allowed to ask questions?_

"Please don't take offense," Kurama said, a half half-heartedly raised towards her calmingly. A wry smile was on his lips. "It is just refreshing to hear someone speak intelligently for once."

"Serious matters require serious thoughts," she answered, her eyes meeting his as her gaze turned prompting once more.

"Your reiki was boosted by the Shikon artifact. It was the battle within it roused even more of your reiki. It is true that youki would do no more than prompt your reiki to chaos, however, if done correctly, we could balance your reiki. We have to meet each other with the same amount of force." Relaxing from his more traditional sitting position, Kurama realigned his body so that he was sitting cross-legged.

Mirroring his position, Kagome brushed aside different places of her hakamas since they were getting slightly in the way and attempted to focus on what he was saying as well as restrain the sudden energy her reiki was bounding with.

"Think of it like this," he murmured, a blade of grace slipping around and caressing his knuckles when he plucked it from the rich earth beneath them.

All of the verdant blades around them were straining towards him, tips reached pointedly near his skin as they wiggled with the desire to caress him. Even the Goshinboku above them hummed heavily, its aura stretching slightly towards the young man in some sort of instinctual acknowledgement.

Kagome had never seen anything like it before.

"You are aware of the story of ying and yang, yes?" He paused briefly and finally noticing that he was truly waiting for some confirmation Kagome hastily murmured an agreement, her eyes still scanning over the suddenly invigorated environment around them.

He must've realized her distraction because he suddenly spoke again, breaking subject.

"Silver kitsune have an affinity for nature."

His mellow voice startled her, causing Kagome's eyes to flick back to his. He gave her a simple smile, and Kagome realized that it was meant to be calming once she noticed the electrified current that was running through her reiki in response to her fright.

At her apologetic slight bow of the head, Kurama smiled truly this time and Kagome found her cheeks warming slightly, her heart quickening before her expression was spoiled with her annoyance.

_What the hell is wrong with me?_

"The only true way to control something is to balance it. Koenma-san believes that my youki should be strong enough to help combat yours. Our power levels appear to be equivalent, at the moment, so balancing it shouldn't be too difficult."

"What do _you_ think?" Kagome asked, resisting the urge to fiddle with the threads of her hakamas and forcing herself to look at the indentured tantei. The entire time, he had proceeded his sentences with Koenma's opinion rather than his—and, honestly, her own opinion of Koenma was low enough where she didn't truly trust his judgment.

"To be honest," he sighed, fingers swiping through burgundy locks. "I'm not entirely positive if the outcome will be what he expected due to the unpredictability of your reiki, but I _do_ have confidence in being able to match it. If not, I have necessary precautions already in place."

Irritation started to bubble within her, causing a slight headache to pound in her temples and Kagome struggled to remind herself that there was no point in getting angry with Kurama; it wasn't his fault that everything was up-in-the-air. It was due to the disorganization of Reikai. In fact, the youkai seemed to be quite well-prepared based on what scarce information he was given.

"The only way to find out is to jump in, Higurashi-san," Kurama concluded with.

"Please call me Kagome," she stated, and she caught his raised head with her level gaze. "We're going to be getting soul-close. Honorfics would be ridiculous at this point."

"I agree…Kagome." His tongue curled around her name, caressing it as darkly as his gold-green gaze settled on hers and with a slight shiver she looked away just as his youki began to amass around him, suddenly raising in power.

The sudden change from his previously mellow aura startled her but his hand instantly steadied her, his grip warm against her skin.

"Thanks," she murmured, eyes avoiding his as she reluctantly thanked him.

"Don't be frightened." His voice was quiet, a mere murmur and she found her nervousness quelled at the confidence in his voice. "We'll proceed slowly until you get used to it." And that was all he said before they began.

She found herself drawing back slightly at the first touch of his soul against her. It was surprisingly scorching against her freezing reiki; the dark instantly tried to curl around the light, causing streams of heat to warm her right up to her fingertips. The air and her body felt almost like one as her reiki erupted around his youki, only for it to respond quickly and embrace her in a shade of darkness. She existed, temporarily, in the bright and dark hues that their auras were throwing as they danced around each other in a synesthesic game of cat and mouse. Sparks shifted throughout her body, uncomfortably painful but the pain held an violently addicting edge that left an ambrosia aftertaste in her mouth that spread through her chest.

"_Oh…" _she heard herself whisper somewhere, sometime—lost in the torrential current that was their souls meeting.

**I really love writing this, if I'm being honest. This is my first KurKag where Kagome is finally openly angry with her own circumstances. It's nice to have her speak more of her mind. A lot of that, I believe, has to do with the fact that she's seventeen in this particular fic. She hasn't quite lost that feistiness of youth!**

**Anyhow, thank you for reading and please review. I absolutely love reviews. They make me update faster ;D**

**(Please Keep in Mind: **_**Since Cerulean is my priority right now, I won't have time to update this unless I get ten reviews to show that people like this. I'm sorry if that upsets some people, but this is a low priority fic unless people show more interest. A simple "Loved it" or "Hated it" works just fine! Longer reviews are the best, though, without a doubt! )**_

**Thank you for reading!**

**-Eryn "Ninja" Silvenia**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:**** I apologize for updating so late, even after you guys passed the ten review minimum! I've been in the hospital lately due to some serious health issues that have suddenly popped up. As an apology for my absence, I wrote way more; in fact, this chapter is **_double_** the regular size of chapters.**

**On another note, thank you guys so much for all of the positive feedback! It makes me so happy to know that you guys like this fic and already find it interesting! Please keep the flow of communication open. I positively love to hear from you all!**

**Advertising****: If you haven't already, please check out my other ongoing Kagome/Kurama fanfictions (**_Cerulean, Crisis, and Barter_**) as well as my completed one-shot, **_Leaves from the Vine_**. **

**Title:**** Intertwined**

**Summary:**** Post-Final Battle, Kagome is trapped in her time with a lot of energy absorbed from her entrapment in the Shikon, causing her powers to be temperamental. Having come to the attention of the Spirit World, Kagome has no choice but to accept weekly visits from an employee to help her balance her reiki.**

* * *

What do you wish for most?

_(What I…)_

_Warmth enveloped her, causing her eyes to burn unexpectedly with tears, as it felt like her mother's arms were comforting her…_

_(What I want…most?)_

"_Kagome-mama?" Shippo whispered, wide, childish green orbs peering up at her, his little paws resting on her leg. His puffy tail periodically wiggled against her arm, reflecting whatever emotions he had running in his head right then. _

"_Yes, Shippo?" Kagome chirped, hiding the weariness that she felt in her chest behind a cheerful façade for her adopted son. She allowed her fingers to comb through the little kitsune's bangs tenderly, and she smiled when he leaned into the warmth of her hand._

"_If you could wish anything on the Tama, what would you?"_

"_I think, Shippo…I think that I would wish to be happy. That's all," she murmured as she leaned down to place a kiss on his forehead, smiling softly when he smiled sleepily at her before nestling further in her sleeping bag, burying his face comfortably against her side._

"_Keh, that's a stupid wish, wench," Inuyasha gruffly said, irritation already in his eyes when she turned to him. But, Kagome could see the softness and affection lurking in his gaze, buried beneath harsh front emotions. _

"_Not everyone wants something specific, Inuyasha. Besides, if I wished to be happy, then everyone would be happy as well. As long as everyone is happy, I will be too."_

"_That better not be your wish, because the Tama is mine," Inuyasha muttered, shuffling from his position in the tree, grumbling. "You promised."_

"_I did," Kagome admitted, though the admittance weighed heavily on her chest. All she wanted was for her and Inuyasha to be happy _together_ but she would never tell him that. She didn't think that she had the constitution. _

Is that what you want, _the voice echoed around her, the sonorous sound consuming her very being. _To be happy?

I could give you _happiness, the voice promised, and suddenly she could hear the rare gruff laughter of Inuyasha, the familiar smack of Sango towards Miroku, and the soft tentative murmurs of "Kagome-mama" from Shippo in her ears. But among them she could hear the loving call of her mother, annoying but endearing joking of her Souta, and the sometimes senile rambling of Gramps. She could hear the giggling gossping voices of her friends and the overbearing cheeriness of Hojo as he chatted. Everyone that she loved was beckoning to her, interacting happily with each other, and it brought joyful tears to her eyes and, at some point, Kagome felt like she could imagine them sliding them down her cheeks._

_To have both of her worlds mix ("Come on, Kagome! We're all waiting for you, silly!"), to have everyone that she cared about together and hap—_

_It was as if someone had poured a bucket of ice cold water over her soul and the warmth and sense of contentment that had been growing in her chest extinguished. Because there were unchangeable facts that had always resonated within her, gnawing painfully at the edges of her soul. Her worlds _were_ separate. The past and the future _couldn't_ mix, and she _knew_ that. _

_She bit her tongue, copper swirling harshly in her mouth, as the illusion was shattered. Voices and smiling faces wisped away with the realization that the Shikon no Tama was using her memories against her, trying to wear her down, and there was nothing that she could do to stop it. Even now, the epiphany was already forgotten as the Tama replaced that particular illusion with another one, and Kagome found herself once again lost in the past except, this time, with no foreseeable way out and the overtones much more darker and violent than before._

* * *

**Chapter Three**

Kagome's eyes snapped open, her reiki shuddering around her as the world opened with such clarity, beads of light and shadow glimmering around her before it all abruptly disappeared, the band that had somehow connected her and Kurama shattering, erupting in what felt like violent, unsteady ripples all around them.

Wide cerulean eyes found dark green. "Is…" Kagome shivered. "Is it always like that?"

"No." When Kurama spoke, he couldn't hide the slight pant that colored his voice as his youki reluctantly separated itself from the young woman's form.

A shiver raced through Kagome's body as the heat that had been prominent in her senses slowly retreated. "Is that bad?" The slight apprehension in her voice didn't go unnoticed.

"No, I simply meant that I wouldn't know," Kurama assured hurriedly, a barely noticeably shaky hand reaching up and roughly running through his bangs.

Kagome managed to cast a poorly concealed glare at him. "I'm just going to ignore the fact that the connotation of your words say that you haven't done this before." Frustrated, her fingers made their way to her head and she began to rub them against her temples, trying to stem what she could feel as incoming headache. An irritated sigh wisped from her lips.

"It feels wrong…" Kagome stated, fingers gripping her other arm as her voice lowered to an almost contemplative murmur. "It feels _wrong_ to be doing something like that with a stranger. It almost seems too…intimate. No offense meant towards you and all." This was just way more intimate than she wanted to get with an attractive and powerful youkai that she had _just_ met.

Kurama was quiet for a second before he spoke and when he did it was with carefully chosen words. "Unfortunately, this is the method that Enma-sama told me to use with you, uncaring of its effects. Sharing aura is usually considered something sacred for holy beings as well as red kitsune. For other spiritual beings and youkai it is of no consequence, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels…invasive." A frown marred the beauty of his features, sitting uncomfortably on his face as he shifted.

"Gomen!" Kagome blurted without thinking, her eyes wide as she stared blatantly at him.

Confusion clouded the young man's eyes, his brows furrowing as he cocked his head slightly to the side in question. Other than the slight movement, his face remained as impassive as ever, no other sign of his reaction to her outburst existing.

Kagome ran a slightly shaky hand through her hair, mussing the midnight strands. "If it had registered in my brain when you said that you were a kitsune earlier, I would have never agreed to this."

Kurama's eyes slanted, his posture suddenly tense. It wasn't until a familiar warmth—would she could now distinctly recognize as his youki—began to crackle in their air, tingling across her skin, that she had realized how what she said could have been taken.

"Oh fuck me!" she hissed, much to her guest's blatant surprise, etiquette going all but out the window in the face of her embarrassment. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant since kitsune hold aura-sharing as sacred." Delicate fingers fidgeted, feathering over her scars out of habit. Her teeth subconsciously chewed on her bottom lip anxiously.

"I appreciate your concern, Kagome-chan," Kurama replied, his voice even and lulling as a genuine smile lifted his lips softly. "However, I promise you that I have no problems sharing my aura with one of equal stature. Besides, I am a silver kitsune and we don't hold auras as sacredly as our brethren. I should have clarified better earlier."

"Oh," she replied intelligently.

"So," Kagome found herself fiddling with her fingers and she forced her hands to still, trying to fight the irrational embarrassment that she could feel trying to heat her cheeks. "Where do we go from here?"

Orange and reds were gleaming off of the Goshinboku's leaves, peeking through the numerous branches as the sun began to set over the shrine, dipping below the tree line at the edge of the property.

Kurama sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. "There was too much…" The word escaped him and Kagome watched as he went through some sort of mental dictionary in his head to find the perfect description.

"Sensory overload," Kagome supplied, trying to ignore how the way her skin was still tingling.

Kurama nodded. "I wasn't even able to begin to gauge how much force we were both outputting. It was too easy to get lost in it."

"So, what do we do now? I get arrested or whatever you guys call it?" The upset coloring Kagome's words was heavily evident to Kurama despite her calm, almost serene tone. The fact that she wouldn't go down without a fight didn't need to be voiced.

Kurama shook his head before he reached back and slipped the ponytail holder out of his hair, freeing the ruby locks. They shimmered in the setting sun, and Kagome, fleetingly, couldn't tell if it looked like it would be coarse or silky. "We'll have to create an anchor." He continued before she could interrupt with a question.

"We're going to have to establish a stronger link," he told her. He was quiet for a few moments before he placed his hand on the grass, the palm turned up towards the sky. Blades of grass slid against his skin, elated at the closeness. "Touching each other should provide a solid anchor for our outside senses."

Her hand shook slightly—warily—as she stretched her fingers out towards his opened hand before she solidified herself and placed her hand on top of his palm. Kagome blinked. The surface was surprisingly callous, a contradiction from his seemingly regal appearance; the pads of his fingertips were rough, weathered the same way hers had been: by the harshness of battle. Her hand was, thankfully, not dwarfed by the size of his—much like it had been when she was with Inuyasha—but it was still obvious that Kurama was a man. The grassy blades caressing his fingers paused before trying to lay flatly across the top of her hand and curling inwards, as if they were trying to lock their hands together but were too short to fully reach.

Kagome's eyes slid closed as wind ruffled her hair and she took a deep breath.

"_Focus on our hands and our breathing,_" she realized he had said, but he had already attempted to brush his soul against hers again and the sudden expanse of aura blossomed behind her closed eyelids again.

Her reiki was vast and crackling with lightning like energy against the heat of the dark hues that lingered in shadows along the edges, equally as immense. They weren't quite touching, but it was similar to watching someone try to mix water with oil; they refused to cooperate, one constantly trying to overpower or devour the other with their respective hues and shreds of power.

And caught in the deluge of their souls, Kagome could feel everything—her hurt, her indecision, her _pain_, but she could also feel her happiness, her wishes, and her tentative dreams. And the harder that she attempted to find the gray area between her reiki and Kurama's youki the more she could _feel_—his acceptance, his happiness, his darkness, his hopes, his mischief, the sheer warmth—just glimmers of his soul pulsating in reach of hers.

And when they met in the middle everything rocked at once, pain flitting through her head and flinching across Kurama's youki with a start as her reiki tried to battle his, sharpening against the blurred, muted hues of his aura.

Skin flexed against hers, the sudden movement of his fingers against hers helping her solidify her footing once again. She had been caught up in the current of their souls that her focus had slipped, but with that twitch Kagome was suddenly aware of the grass itching against their skin, the coolness of the air as the sunlight waned, and the heated pulse where his hand was connected with hers. She was able to focus on more than just them, which allowed her to take a step back.

_Stop looking for a gray area, _Kurama's voice brushed against her mind, soothing the residual pain away. _We need to create one._

Reaching tentatively, she regained control over her reiki and began to attempt to match his energy output. Dark clashed harshly with light but then suddenly everything fit like a final puzzle piece had slid into place and the world behind her eyelids erupted in synesthesia—colors dancing across their souls in harmonious piquancy.

All of the lingering residual anger and hostility that she hadn't realized had been pooled in her body drained from her muscles all at once, her sinews puddling beneath her skin.

"That is the balance," she heard Kurama say, and she realized that they had finished what he had come to accomplish when the words had met her ears and not her mind.

The overwhelming heat of his youki's boundaries disappeared as Kurama separated his aura from hers, but it left behind a lingering warmth that hummed in her veins before Kagome once again had a complete grasp on the temporal world.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes, kaleidoscopic fractures dancing along her vision before they faded, leaving to join the departure of the last rays of the sunset dipping through the trees.

"My reiki, it's never felt this…calm." Not since Kikyou had stolen the half of her soul, and the discord had only worsened after her power increase. But right now, her reiki was a cooling current coasting through her body, subdued and dormant in a way that it hadn't been before.

"_Thank you_," Kagome said, genuinely surprising Kurama and herself with the declaration of gratitude.

"You're welcome, Kagome," he replied, once again unnerving her as he connected those viridescent eyes with her azure orbs. Though his appearance was more on the delicate side, there was something undeniably raw and calculatingly _youkai_ about his gaze.

"I can come again next Saturday to repeat the process." Kurama murmured and before she realized what he was doing, he had grasped and placed a gentlemanly kiss on the back of her hand, eyes gold-green, before standing up. The wind was happily playing with strands of his hair, lifting them in the air. Nimble fingers brushed off his jeans, dislodging any residual dirt.

She cast a glance back at the shrine, her gaze ghosting over the well house, allowing herself a flash of relief when her reiki didn't respond painfully as it usually did when she did. "That should be fine."

Kagome turned back to say something else when her words paused in the air. The kitsune had already left, nothing but leaves and quivering foliage left in his wake. A leaf—splattered with vivacious swirls of yellow, red, and orange—twirled, pirouetting in the air before it promptly landed in Kagome's still outstretched palm, obviously not caring about the fact that it wasn't even Autumn.

_I have so many questions. But I am just too damn tired to even bother_, Kagome sighed mentally, but truthfully, she had more energy than she could remember having in a long time.

The fox had come and gone like the wind. And although she had just met him, it was obvious that he was more of a quiet, intellectual. He hadn't really used any unnecessary words and had left as quietly as he came.

And the place where his lips had touched her knuckles _burne_d, making her body flash with shuddering heat in remembrance of the intimate touch of his youki against her reiki. Kagome swallowed heavily, feeling her throat move roughly beneath her hand—which she hadn't realized that she had moved.

It was until a few seconds later that she felt a pointed gaze on her and she noticed that Souta had come out there to check on her at some point. He was looking at her very strangely, his face scrunched and brows furrowed. He almost looked constipated with how oddly he was looking at her, and Kagome couldn't help but to feel uncomfortable underneath the judgmental stare.

"What?" Kagome asked blankly.

"You guys are weird," Souta said bluntly and, for some reason, that made Kagome's face erupt in red all the way up to the tips of her ears.

"Y-You little brat! Come here!"

Skin, aged by years of worry, pulled up into a sudden smile as Kun-Loon heard the vivacious laughter of her children spilling out in the yard and drifting through the window over the sink.

"_C-Cut it out, Kagome! I'm not a little kid anymore!"_

"_Kagome, I'm going to freaking pee myself!"_

"_I swear that I'll aim for you!"_

"_Shut it, you twerp!"_

"_Okasan, Kagome is being a butt!"_

"Ah," Kun-Loon smiled warmly as she wiped her hands off on her apron and made her way into the living room where her two children had eventually ended up, bickering in full force as if to make up for lost time. She placed a hand on her chest, feeling her heart tremble underneath it with happiness at the sight of fire—though, playfully angered fire—lighting her daughter's eyes once more. "This is a sight for sore eyes. It's been a long time since I've heard two sets of laughter."

The giggles that had been streaming uncharacteristically from Kagome suddenly died, and her fingers stopped their ticklish jabs against Souta's sensitive sides as her mother's words registered.

They were true. She hadn't been the same ever since she had found herself trapped back in her time, the magic that had once practically streamed from the antique well drained into resonating silence. After the psychological agony that her mind had undergone under the hands of Naraku's influencing spirit and the Tama, to find out that she would never see her feudal family ever again—that had been soul-crushing. So, the laughter had vanished and the smiles had become few and she knew that her gaze was glazed, staring into the past and being content to be bored and disinterested with the present.

But right now—

The weight that had been on her shoulders had lessened immensely, and shock drifted through her as Kagome realized that the weight hadn't fully been proverbial as she had thought. She didn't feel like her old self—no, her time in the Sengoku Judai and _especially_ in the Tama had disintegrated that bridge—but whatever had been sitting on her chest and pouring stress through her veins had eased. She hadn't noticed the toll that her increase in power had taken on her physically and mentally until this sudden moment of calm and…_happiness_.

And Kagome was aware that this would be brief—this period of peace and weightlessness—and that eventually her reiki would begin to shift towards instability once more. But, until then_… _

"I'm happy to see that it wasn't as bad of an experience as you thought it was going to be, dear," Kun-Loon murmured as she turned away momentarily, successfully hiding the tell-tale glimmer of happy tears glossing her eyes. "Maybe Koenma-sama does know what he's doing, after all."

"I'm…I'm glad too, Mama," Kagome answered, trying to bite back the writhing guilt she felt when her mother's face was surprised at her genuine answering beam. Souta erupted in laughter, eyes sparkling as he caught the look on his mother's face.

…_until then,_ for them_, she would go with it. _

**I'm so happy to be home! And I, without a doubt, missed the fanfiction community. My medicine makes me extremely sleepy so I've lost a lot of valuable reading and writing time. I actually wrote this in between four naps LOL.**

**Anyhow, thank you for reading and please review. I absolutely love reviews. They make me update faster ;D**

**(Please Keep in Mind: **_**Since Cerulean is my priority right now, I won't have time to update this unless I get ten reviews to show that people like this. I'm sorry if that upsets some people, but this is a low priority fic unless people show more interest. A simple "Loved it" or "Hated it" works just fine! Longer reviews are the best, though, without a doubt! )**_

**Also, for you Cerulean fans, an update will be coming either sometime today or tomorrow! I've finally figured out where I was going with what I was doing, which—well, that and the hospital visits—was what the holdup was. Crisis will also be updated soon!**

**Thank you for reading!**

**-Eryn "Ninja" Silvenia**


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